Thursday, October 16, 2008

It's pumpkin pie season here, and Thanksgiving weekend just ended in Canada. My 9-year old daughter loves pumpkin pie, so, together we spent an afternoon making pie crust and pumpkin pie filling. She's my buddy in the kitchen, always wanting to help stir or break an egg or taste the batter. And she has an amazing set of taste buds that can differentiate the subtleties of bitter or sour, dark chocolates, and Dutch-processed versus natural cocoa powder. She's my taste tester, and I look forward to many more hours spent in the kitchen with her as she grows up.

For this pumpkin pie, I wanted to add a couple of my favorite flavors: chai tea and coconut. Masala chai is a tea that's infused with spices like cinnamon, cardamom, star anise, cloves and ginger. At the grocery store, I found some Maple Sugar made in Quebec so I used it instead of regular sugar. For extra spice, I added some ground ginger to the crust. All these spices and flavors blended nicely with the pumpkin and made a special pie for Thanksgiving.

Playing AroundI bought some wide mouth canning jars awhile ago thinking they were so pretty and hoped to do some canning this year. But, instead of canning, I used the lids as removable bottom tart pans. They worked great. Just make sure you put them on a parchment-lined baking sheet for baking.

Recipe

Makes 8 individual or 1 9-inch tart

Note: The filling makes more than you need for the crust. Either double the crust or half the filling.

For the crust: Mound the flour, sugar, salt, and ginger on the counter. Make a well and pour the milk and egg yolk in. Start to mix this up with your fingers. Start adding the butter and work it together until it forms a ball. Gather it into a ball and wrap it in plastic wrap. Chill for 4 hours or up to 2 days before rolling and baking.

Note that this dough is tricky to roll out since there's so much butter in it, but it is so tender and crispy that it's worth the extra effort.

Preheat oven to 425˚F. Line crust with foil. Fill with pie weights or dried beans. Bake until sides are set, about 20 minutes. Remove foil and weights. Bake until golden brown. Place aluminum foil collar around edge of crust if it browns too quickly, about 15 minutes. Cool completely.

For the filling: Preheat oven to 325˚F. Heat the heavy cream, coconut milk, cinnamon stick, cloves, ginger, and chai teabag until it comes to a boil. Remove from the heat, and stir in the sugar and salt. Let this mixture steep for 5 minutes. In a separate bowl, whisk the eggs. Strain the cream mixture into a bowl. Slowly whisk in the eggs, tempering them so that the eggs don't curdle. Pour mixture into cooled crust. Bake until filling is set and knife inserted into center comes out clean, about 1 hour for a 9-inch tart and 30 minutes for individual tarts. Cool to room temperature.

30
comments:

Your speaking my language with those pumpkins! And how smart to use those lids. Genius I say. and Chia spice? YUM! Maple sugar? YUM!I'm still kicking myself that I didn't buy any maple butter when I was up there in the summer.

Shari, you never cease to amaze me! The lid trick is simply brilliant!

Now, I realise we both have nine years old daughters a.k.a kitchen elves! ...though mine is incredible with flair, miles away she can detect and analyse smells like noone I know! Aren't we lucky to have such followers, uhhhh... disciples!!! LOL

Pumkin, coconut, maple sirup sounds divine... and I truly wonder what Chai Tea must bring to the flavor!

Ooooh! Pumpkin pie is one of my favorites anyway, but I believe that I would like it even better with your creative modifications! The tarts are just darling. I bet your little helper has as much fun as you do!

Is there any sweet that you can't add chai spice to. I don't think so. Love the mini tarts made in the jar lids. Hooray multi tasking!!! What a great idea. These look great. I have to try this recipe. Yummy!!

Trying so hard now I'm livingin US to like pumpkin pie, still seems so wrong to eat pumpkin as a sweet dish. Roasted with some honey and or brown sugar is how I like it, or as soup. Maybe I should keep trying. I'll start by cooking your version.

Fan flipping tastic! I cannot wait to try this. I've made chai oatmeal, but this is just brilliant. Luckily Canadian Thanksgiving is way earlier than American Thanksgiving so I've got plenty of time to make this for our celebration.

Oh ya, and canning lids as tart pans... absolute genius!

Funny about your daughter and taste. My 10 year old is like that with smells. She once told me that the room spray I'd used (natural stuff with clove in it) smelled like Coke. After careful consideration we all had to agree with her. I'll have to get her on kitchen detail.

Great content. I came across this recipe when doing a review on a Williams-Sonoma Pastry Shell recipe. There are so many recipes for pastry shells out there... it's interesting to see what everyone is doing!